Night of the Hunter

CHAPTER 25

The companions and Entreri were not the only ones remaining in the room. Pwent was there, though only a few of his drow minions remained standing. Another crawled weirdly around the floor, relieved of its legs and one arm by drow swordsmen.

And a trio of summoned berserkers remained. The shocking sound and effect of the titanic struggle between Wulfgar and the drider gave them pause, but the berserkers had come in to the call of the horn for one reason alone: to fight against the enemies of the one who blew the horn.

The surreal stillness shattered as the berserkers threw themselves into battle against the undead, and Thibbledorf Pwent, a battlerager in heart and soul, was more than happy to engage.

He met the charge of a berserker, lowering his head at the last moment to drive his helmet spike right through the reckless fool. He snapped up straight as the spike plunged through, and held his hands out wide, laughing maniacally as if in expectation of a shower of blood.

But these manifestations didn’t bleed, and the corporeal form exploded into sweeping dust when Pwent struck the mortal blow, leaving the vampire standing alone, confused and hungry.

And angry.

He leaped to the side and dispatched a second berserker, even as his minions pulled down a third, tearing at flesh, then swiping futilely at flying dust.

“Pwent, no!” Drizzt screamed from the side of the room as the four undead charged at the foursome across the way, Pwent leading the way to Wulfgar, it seemed.

And over on that side, Wulfgar was clearly no less angry. He stood beside the broken drider, blood running freely down his muscular chest, leaning uneasily on his stabbed foot, and with every vampiric strike on one of Tempus’s warriors, he growled and limped forward.

“No, boy!” Drizzt heard Bruenor warn.

“Go,” Entreri told him, and shoved Drizzt into pursuit, and ran for Pwent right alongside him.

Then came the roar of “Tempus!” and Aegis-fang spun out from Wulfgar’s hands, flying into the approaching Pwent. The dwarf didn’t dematerialize at all, but took the ringing blow, one that sent him staggering and skidding backward several strides, one that actually seemed to hurt him.

Catti-brie moved up beside Wulfgar and held forth her hand, invoking the glory of Mielikki, the very name manifesting itself as a bright light upon the woman. The vampire minions staggered and turned away, hunched and cowering.

But not Pwent.

He focused on Wulfgar, seemingly oblivious to Drizzt and Entreri as they closed in fast from behind. Not fast enough, however, for the vampire executed that curious and devastating ghost-step to bring himself right in front of the man, fog trailing and swirling as he became solid once more, holding fast for just an instant before leaping onto Wulfgar, who caught the force fully and went flying away in a clench with the dwarf.

Pwent began to thrash and shake, but the sheer strength of Wulfgar matched the dwarf and kept him from ripping Wulfgar apart with his ridged armor. They rolled and struggled mightily, Bruenor trying vainly to intercede, Catti-brie beginning yet another spell.

On one roll, Pwent put his stout legs under him and regained his footing, driving Wulfgar back. But Wulfgar, as in his previous existence, was possessed of fine agility for one so large and he turned his torso and also got his feet planted, and so Pwent’s drive actually brought the barbarian upright as well.

Pwent tried to punch, but Wulfgar held him by the wrists. They struggled and twisted, the dwarf suddenly lowering his head to line up his helmet spike.

Wulfgar had to grab it to twist it aside, and he tried to twist further, to throw the dwarf off him.

He wasn’t fast enough, though, as Pwent’s freed hand immediately pounded against the barbarian’s massive chest, the gauntlet spike tearing through flesh and rib and lung alike, and Wulfgar went staggering back and to the ground.

“Pwent!” Bruenor screamed, finally catching up and throwing himself against the dwarf.

Pwent bounced aside and turned, ready to leap back in. He paused, though, and stood there staring at Bruenor, confused, trembling.

“Me king,” he said, his voice thick with sorrow, and he lowered his gaze in shame.

“Get aside, ye fool! By Moradin’s word, get aside!” Bruenor roared.

Pwent looked up at him and nodded. “Me king,” he said reverently, and seemed fully in control once more, and full of remorse and shame.

Drizzt and Entreri came running up, swords in hand, and skidded to a stop behind Bruenor, who lifted his hand to halt them.

“Ye do what I’m tellin’ ye, and ye do not-a-thing more,” the dwarf king said to Pwent, who nodded obediently.

But that nod transformed into a curious expression, then one that included a bit of pain, it seemed, and Pwent’s eyes led all to the right, to the fallen Wulfgar and to Catti-brie standing over him, holding a curious object and chanting an arcane poem.

“Girl?” Bruenor asked at the same time Pwent yelled, “No!” and leaped for the woman.

And again, this seemed a curious, supernatural stride, one elongated and too swift, and one full of spinning wisps of foggy trails.

But Pwent didn’t materialize from that step as before, and indeed became wholly insubstantial, mist or fog or dust, perhaps, right before all of it swept into the object Catti-brie held before her: Wulfgar’s horn.

The silver horn shuddered with the vampire dwarf’s entrance, and a strange low note came forth, spraying the dust of captured ancients, and ten berserkers appeared in the room before Catti-brie. They all looked around curiously, confused, and they all blew away to dust, then to nothingness altogether.

“Girl, what’d’ye do?” Bruenor asked, running up.

Already bathed in her ghostly blue mist, Catti-brie tossed him the horn and fell over Wulfgar, casting once more. Blue tendrils snaked out of her sleeves and rolled down over the prone form, warm healing to wash over the badly wounded Wulfgar.

“Girl?” Bruenor asked breathlessly a few moments later, Drizzt flanking him. Just to the side of them, Entreri helped Regis back to his feet, and they, too, looked on.

Catti-brie looked up and smiled, and below her, Wulfgar matter-of-factly remarked, “Ouch,” then with great difficulty propped himself up on his elbows.

Drizzt took the horn from Bruenor and held it up to examine it, and noted a crack running along its side.

“Ye breaked it, girl,” Bruenor remarked when Drizzt pointed it out.

“It will hold him.”

“I had him back to his senses,” Bruenor protested. “We ain’t done yet!”

“No, but Pwent is,” Catti-brie said, rising and coming over to take back the horn. She slung it over her shoulder, shaking her head to deny any forthcoming protests from the dwarf.

“We came for Pwent and we got him,” Regis interjected. He looked at the man standing beside him and added, “We came for Entreri and we got him.”

Entreri looked down at him curiously. “Who are you?” he asked, and in response, Regis held up his hand with the missing finger, a digit removed in the trauma of his near-catastrophic birth, but so eerily similar to the wound Entreri had put upon him in his previous existence.

Entreri turned his confused expression to Drizzt, who merely answered, “Are you really surprised by anything anymore?”

The assassin shrugged and glanced back the other way, where the vampire minions huddled together at the far end of the room, cowering from Catti-brie’s powerful invocation. He nodded to Drizzt and started off to dispose of them, but it was Regis who led the way.

“Ye sure it’ll hold him, then?” Bruenor quietly asked Catti-brie when the trio had gone off.

The woman inspected the horn and nodded.

Bruenor sighed.

“It is best,” Catti-brie said. “Pwent can’t control himself-not for long, and not for much longer at all. It’s a curse full of great powers, and surely not a blessing. We’ll find him his rest, the proper rest for Thibbledorf Pwent.”

“Ah, but I loved the dirty brawler.”

“And Moradin will enjoy him at the great feast,” Catti-brie replied, managing a smile, and Bruenor nodded again.

“Ouch,” Wulfgar said again from beside them, and with great effort, he rolled around and managed to sit up.

Bruenor pulled one of Regis’s healing potions from his belt, but Wulfgar waved him away. “We may need it later,” he said, his voice still a bit breathless.

They sent Regis to finish off the crawling beast, then Drizzt and Entreri waded into the trio of cowering undead with wild abandon, blades hacking the creatures apart before they ever knew they were being attacked.

“Is it really them?” Entreri asked quietly, and Drizzt nodded.

“Where is Dahlia?” Drizzt asked as they approached the hanging cages.

Entreri shook his head. “I haven’t seen her in more than a day-perhaps longer. I have little sense of the passage of time down here.”

“Effron?”

Entreri shook his head, and pointed to lead Drizzt’s gaze to the misshapen pile of splattered skull.

Drizzt gasped and averted his eyes.

“They tormented her with that, your fine kin,” Entreri said. “The sight of it … of him, broke her and left her vulnerable.”

Drizzt sighed. He could only imagine the pain such a loss would have inflicted on fragile Dahlia, and so soon after she had come to reconcile with her son, both in his forgiveness of her and her own forgiveness of herself. Effron had allowed Dahlia to come to terms with her own dark past, and had given her hope for the future.

And there it lay, splattered on the floor.

“How long since your capture, do you think?” Drizzt asked, needing to shift the subject.

“Several days-less than a tenday, I believe. They took us in Port Llast, and laid waste to much of the place.”

Drizzt looked around, his expression curious. “Not so many dark elves,” he remarked.

“Because Tiago led them off,” Entreri replied, “with an army at his heels-looking for you, I expect. That seems to be the driving desire in his life.”

Entreri climbed up the side of Afafrenfere’s cage and picked the lock quickly, then dropped down to help the drow ease the monk to the floor. Fortunately, this cage hadn’t been glyphed like Entreri’s.

“We’ll throw him in the primordial pit,” Entreri offered. “So they can’t raise him and torment-”

“No,” came an interruption, a weak and parched whisper-from Afafrenfere!

Entreri jumped back and nearly jumped out of his boots, staring wide-eyed.

“We thought you were dead,” Drizzt cried.

“For all the days we’ve been here!” Entreri added.

The monk stiffly moved up to one elbow, swallowing repeatedly. “Fortunately,” he said, his voice a thin whisper, “so did our captors.”

“How?” Entreri cried. “What?”

“He faked his death,” Regis announced, rushing over to join them, having finally dispatched the crawling monstrosity. “Convincingly! He is a monk, after all.”

“Repeatedly,” Afafrenfere confirmed. “Whenever anyone was about.”

“You could have let me know,” said Entreri. “For all the days I hung beside you.”

“That the illithid might draw it from your thoughts?”

“You’re lucky we didn’t just leave you here,” Entreri grumped.

Afafrenfere started to rise and Drizzt and Entreri moved fast to help him up, but they found immediately that they would have to fully support him if he was to remain upright. They eased him to a sitting position instead, and Drizzt called out to Catti-brie.

“Now what?” Entreri asked Drizzt when the group, now seven strong, was all together.

“We should make for the exit quickly,” Catti-brie said, and nodded at Wulfgar and Afafrenfere, both sitting propped against the wall, both weak and weary and in no condition for another fight anytime soon.

But Drizzt answered by bringing forth the mace the largest of the driders had carried. “Amber is down here,” he said. “And Dahlia, likely.”

“Likely both dead or taken away by those who fled,” Entreri answered.

“Like Effron? So we should leave?” Drizzt asked, and it seemed more an accusation than an honest question.

“No,” Entreri answered. “You and I should go and find them. And quickly.”

Drizzt looked to Catti-brie, who nodded.

“Not without meself, ye don’t,” Bruenor grumbled.

“Or me,” said Regis.

“Aye,” Entreri sarcastically replied. “Because it would do well to leave our injured with the woman alone, to face the drow should they return through another course.”

Bruenor made a noise that sounded remarkably like a growl.

But Entreri ignored him. “Stealth,” he said to Drizzt.

“I’m as quiet as any,” Regis protested.

“And speed,” Entreri added without missing a breath. He turned to Regis. “Then keep a silent watch,” he said and started off. Or tried to, but by that point, his adrenalin had played out and his knee buckled. He pulled himself straight immediately and stood very still, as if willing away the pain.

A tap on his side brought Entreri from his self-imposed meditation to find Regis standing beside him, holding forth a small potion bottle.

“Healing,” the halfling offered, and when Entreri took it, he handed him a second vial. “For the drow poison,” he explained.

Entreri settled comfortably as the first potion filled him with warmth, and he tipped a nod to Regis before quaffing the second. “Off,” he said to Drizzt, “with all speed.” And he started away once more.

Drizzt looked all around. He didn’t want to leave his friends in this dangerous place, not for a moment, but he knew that Entreri was right, and that Amber and hopefully Dahlia needed him. He dropped Taulmaril and the enchanted quiver at Catti-brie’s feet.

“You take it,” she said, but Drizzt just shook his head and sprinted away, hustling to catch up to Entreri.

Regis moved around the Forge, inspecting the work areas and pocketing more than a few items in that magical pouch he carried.

Bruenor went to the mithral door, nodding. He knew what lay behind it. It would not open, however, and he could find no handle to try to pull it in. He put his shoulder against it and pushed, but he might as well have been pushing against the mountain itself.

Drizzt and Entreri, too, had gone to that door first, then had rushed off to the far end of the room, angling down the corridor where some of the drow had run off.

Wulfgar, much-improved by Catti-brie’s healing, sat up against the wall, resting easily and with Aegis-fang close at hand. If the drow came in, he would stand against them. Beside him, Afafrenfere lay on his back, working his arms up into the air in small circles, and his hands working in circles of their own, fingers lifting and closing as he tried to reawaken muscles that had been dormant for days. His voice was still thin as he explained the monk technique of feigning death to Wulfgar and Catti-brie.

Wulfgar listened intently, and with an amused expression, for the warrior barbarian hadn’t even learned the art of retreat, let alone faking his death to fool enemies!

And Catti-brie did not listen at all, hardly aware of her surroundings.

For in her head, the woman heard a call, quiet but insistent, a plea, and one from some being beyond her, some great creature, perhaps divine … though its mental intrusion seemed too foreign to be that of Mielikki’s song.

She didn’t understand. She unwittingly clenched her hand.

The woman leaned against the wall. Wulfgar’s laughter interrupted her thoughts and she turned to regard him, then followed his gaze and Afafrenfere’s to the Great Forge centering the room, and to Regis, who was trying to drag an enormous warhammer, a weapon made for a giant king, it seemed-and indeed it had been crafted for just that reason-from the work table.

“What’re ye about, Rumblebelly?” Bruenor called from across the way.

Regis lifted up his small belt pouch, which seemed barely large enough to contain his hand up to his wrist. With a wry grin, Regis slipped the bag over the end of the weapon’s long handle, and smiling all the wider, the mischievous halfling continued sliding the pouch up, the shaft disappearing within, seeming as if the magic was somehow devouring it.

“And how’re ye to get the hammer’s head over that little bag, magical or not?” Bruenor asked, for indeed, it didn’t seem possible.

“Well, come help me, then,” Regis argued back, and realizing his error, he began extracting the handle from the pouch.

Bruenor gave a great “harrumph” and stood with his hands on his hips, but Wulfgar pulled himself up and started over.

Catti-brie started to call out to him, to jokingly warn him not to let the light-fingered halfling near Aegis-fang, but she was interrupted before she ever begin by an insistent telepathic call, a plea to her, she felt, but in some language she could not decipher.

She glanced at the mithral door just down the way and crunched up her face curiously, seeing that liquid was spilling out around it, steaming and bubbling.

“Water?” she whispered, and realized that the door had opened a crack. She gathered up the bow and quiver, slinging both over her shoulder and moved to the door. She easily pulled it wide, revealing a low corridor beyond. She lifted her hand, the light from the spell she had placed upon her ring stealing the darkness before her and revealing to her a series of puddles along the floor, fast evaporating, billowing steam, though the woman, protected from fire as she was, couldn’t feel the heat.

“Girl?” she heard Bruenor call out as she entered the tunnel.

“Girl!” he yelled more frantically, but his voice was cut short as the heavy metal door swung closed behind her. Catti-brie went to it and pushed, but it would not budge. Strangely, she was not afraid, and the voice in her head beckoned her along. She made her way down the tunnel, pausing at one puddle where a broken pile of fast-cooling black rock lay. She found more of it along the path, like volcanic spit in a river bed, but she could make no sense of it.

She exited the tunnel into the steamy chamber, coming out right beside a pony-sized green spider that seemed to twitch at the sight of her. Catti-brie fell back and turned into a defensive crouch, her hand reflexively going to her bow. She shook her head and did not proceed, though, thinking that its movement must be a trick of her eye in the swirling steam of this place, for it seemed just a statue.

A beautiful jade statue, shining green against her light spell, and so intricate in detail as to appear lifelike. Still, when it didn’t move, Catti-brie couldn’t focus on it. The room around it seemed full of surprises, and oddly mixed shapes and items. To her right, beyond and above the spider, loomed tapestries of impossibly thick hanging webbing that shimmered and seemed alive in the pressing waves of steam.

Roving her eye out to the left and across the floor, Catti-brie noted an altar, black and shot with veins of red, as if carrying blood throughout the solid stone. Just past it loomed the ledge and a large pile of broken lava rock, steaming feverishly. Just past it lay the pit, with water raining down from above and steam billowing up from below, and Catti-brie felt herself drawn to the lip, to gaze in.

She saw the swirling cyclone of living water, and saw the fiery eye far below-and knew that fiery eye to be the source of the whispers in her head.

She closed her eyes tight and concentrated, trying to hear the call, and saw in her mind’s eye this very room, and her focus moved down along the ledge, to a bridge, an anteroom, a lever …

Catti-brie opened her eyes, shaking her head for she could make no sense of this.

She heard the call of the fiery primordial again, and saw again the small room under an archway, with a lever.

The fiery beast wanted her to go to it, to pull it. She could feel its plea, its heavy heart, like a panther trapped in a small cage, or an eagle with its wings tied.

She started along the ledge, past the altar, and through the swirling fog, she saw a bridge crossing the chasm. Then she was upon it, halfway and more. And she saw a surge of water within the small room, rising up like a wave, and rushing out suddenly at her, a great breaker rolling over itself, barreling toward her to throw her from her precarious perch.

Catti-brie turned away and cast a spell, just in time to magically jump back the way she had come. The water crashed against her, hastening her journey, sending her into a flight that nearly flung her into the webbing as the water broke all around her.

Broke but did not dissipate. It flew together past her and rose up like some thick bear, watery arms outstretched and ready to batter her.

Catti-brie felt its animosity, saw its rage, and as it rolled in at her, she lifted her hands, thumbs touching, and burst a fan of flames into it. That minor spell hardly slowed the great water elemental, of course, but in its hiss and the resulting gout of steam, Catti-brie managed a retreat. She ran to the altar and skidded around it, using it as a shield so that if the elemental tried to break upon her and wash her away, the altar stone would serve as a small seawall and breakwater.

Her mind raced. She pulled Taulmaril from her shoulder, but shook her head and dropped it to the floor immediately, realizing that using lightning energy against a water elemental might not be a good idea. Indeed, the only clear notion that cut through the jumble of her thoughts was the need for the opposing element, the need for fire.

And so she began spellcasting and the elemental charged, and she threw a fireball at her own feet as it swept upon her. Clenching her fist with her protective ring, she rushed away through the blinding flames, water battering her and crashing into her, and throwing her to the floor back near where she had entered the room. Instinctively she started for the tunnel, but scolded herself for her foolishness before she had taken her second step, for surely the malleable water elemental could rush along that narrow passage and even drown her against the door at the far end.

The elemental rose up around the altar, but not quite as huge, it seemed. The fireball had stolen some of its watery composition, turning part of the being to harmless drifting steam.

Catti-brie was already deep into her next spellcasting as the primal watery monster stalked in, rolling toward her like a giant ocean swell. Fires burned around her hands, sparkling and sizzling, and she punched them out, but not at the water elemental.

Instead she threw her last fiery spell, another wall of fire, running it the length of the ledge, splitting the bare area of the chamber in half and with the hot side of the wall burning back toward her and toward the door and the wall and the webbing.

When the water elemental didn’t come through, Catti-brie leaped through her fire wall and taunted it.

How she could feel its seething hatred, as if she were a creature of the opposing plane of existence, as if she were a fire elemental instead of a flesh-and-bones human.

Despite her towering wall of burning fire, the watery beast threw itself at her, roaring like a wave, breaking like the ocean surf.

She jumped back through the wall of fire, into the inferno, and the elemental, so full of irrational hatred, followed. The water break swept her from her feet, but did not wash her aside, and she scrambled along, just inside the fire wall, and the elemental pursued. The water rushed in around her, roiling and boiling and bubbling, those bubbles popping and spraying the woman. But she did not feel the heat of the boiling water, as she did not feel the flames.

Steam mixed with rolling, angry fires, and she stumbled on, and when she felt no water around her any longer, she turned aside and dived back through the wall, into the clear and just past the altar stone.

And there back the other way stood the water elemental, much smaller now, but no less angry.

Catti-brie taunted it and held her ground, and again it charged, rolling in with the anger of a hurricane-driven tide determined to smash a wharf to kindling.

At the last moment, Catti-brie dived back through the wall, and more blue mist came from her sleeves, though it could not be seen in the swirl of fire. This spell was divine in source, calling to the stone beneath her hand, and she melded in with it, sinking her arm into it just as the water elemental fell over her.

She could feel the anger in the sloshing waves. The beast roared in her ears, hating her, needing to destroy her. It tried to pull her back to the cool side of the wall, but the woman held her ground, her arm literally rooted to the stone floor.

The elemental could not pull her free, could not take her away, and so it fell over her completely, holding its form around her, drowning her where she kneeled!

She could not draw breath. She swatted with her free hand, but the water would not wipe aside, would not leave its press on her nose and mouth.

She could not breathe, could not cast a spell. She felt as if a mountain giant was pressing a wet pillow over her face, and so she thrashed but she could not budge the giant.

Desperation drove her on-she felt as if her lungs would explode.

And then she was moving at least, back and forth in her jerking action, for now the mountain giant seemed more like an ogre.

Her enemy had diminished.

Catti-brie calmed immediately with that realization, conserved what little breath she had remaining. Darkness rose up around her, at the edges of her vision, as if the floor itself was swallowing her.

With that troubling thought, the woman reflexively retracted her enchanted arm, breaking her meld, and now the water elemental could pull her from the flames that bit at it and bubbled it to harmless gas.

But no, it could not, and the watery gag was gone, and even the steam diminished now.

Catti-brie rolled through her fire wall and lay on her back, gasping for breath. She feared that the elemental, too, had come through to the cool side, and would now fall over her once more, but no, it was not there.

It was gone, destroyed, melted to steam and flown away.

And the voice in her head returned, cheering, and she could understand it now and knew it to be the primordial.

It spoke in the tongue of the Plane of Fire, and Catti-brie understood that tongue, though she should not.

Images filled her mind-an explanation from the primordial? She imagined a humanoid that seemed made of magma leap from the pit and rumble down the tunnel. That magma elemental had opened the door, but the water elemental had pursued it, and had battered it to pieces back along the corridor and had broken it fully, over there, by the altar, where the steaming rubble remained.

The primordial had opened the door for her, to bring her in here, to pull the lever, to free it. She could feel its outrage, and when she looked around at the room, she understood that outrage to be wrought in violation. And not from the dwarves who had built this place, no, nor the wizards who had contained the volcano beneath the power of the water elementals. This outrage was new, an anger wrought in pride, an anger festering because the drow had dared turn this place into a chapel for the Demon Queen of Spiders.

Catti-brie pulled herself up from the floor, shaking her head, silently denying the primordial’s pleas. How could this be? How could she understand the language of that otherworldly plane of existence?

Her gaze went to her magically brightened hand, to the ruby ring. She had thought it a simple ring of fire protection, a fairly common item, but no, she knew now. No, this ring’s enchantment went far deeper, was far older, and many times more powerful, and it was a magic that had to be unlocked, for the wielder to prove herself worthy. And Catti-brie had done so by destroying an elemental from the opposing plane, an elemental of water.

Now with its magic fully engaged, this ring attuned Catti-brie to the Plane of Fire, and that magical connection deciphered the primordial’s call.

And through this ring, she could call back to it.

Her fire wall came down then, the magic expired, but still some small flames burned, for they had caught the webbing, layer and layer stripped away as tiny flames sparked and climbed.

Movement turned her gaze to the right, to the jade spider, as it turned to her.

Movement to the left showed her a second spider, similarly turning to face her.

“They are mine,” came a voice directly above and in front of her, and Catti-brie looked up to see a last layer of webbing burn aside to reveal a woman, an elf woman, hanging there, her arms outstretched. Her raven hair, shot with red streaks so similar to the altar stone, braided in a single line atop her head, and her face was marked with a multitude of blue dots. As she smiled and whispered the name of Catti-brie, those dots seemed to shift and join into an image.

A spider.

The newcomer drove her arms forward and the pole from which she was hanging broke in half over her back. She dropped to the floor to land gracefully, half the metal pole in each hand, and she snapped her wrists suddenly, violently, and each of those poles became two, joined by a length of cord, became a flail, and the woman put the weapon into a spin.

“Catti-brie,” she said again, wickedly, and she laughed.

She turned her head left and right and called to the jade spiders.

“Come, my pets.”

And they did.

And Catti-brie, her magic all but exhausted, stood with her back to the primordial pit.